Self-made millionaires and billionaires knew what it was like to be poor, middle-class, or even just slightly less rich. It wasn't the end of the world. They were happy. So you have to get a Ferrari instead of a Bugatti. BFD.

Rich kids who won the uterus lottery grow up so sheltered, they seem to think the real world is a coont hair away from Thunderdome.

Self-made millionaires and billionaires knew what it was like to be poor, middle-class, or even just slightly less rich. It wasn't the end of the world. They were happy. So you have to get a Ferrari instead of a Bugatti. BFD.

Rich kids who won the uterus lottery grow up so sheltered, they seem to think the real world is a coont hair away from Thunderdome.

Seems to me a pretty heavy indictment of Sam Walton - he raised a brood of assholes.

Dancin_In_Anson:They take advantage of tax laws...much in the same way as you and I do...and much like Gates and Buffet do.

What was the beef again?

You and I taking advantage of tax laws, with the few thousand we collectively pay in taxes every year is nothing compared to a single loophole exploited by the 8+-figure crowd.

There's also the problem that they, with their financial largesse, can affect what the actual tax laws are (while we can't to the same degree), making the idea that we're anything close to a level playing field ludicrous on its face.

There's "gaming the system", and there's "creating a system favorable to your games". We may do the former for the cost of maybe a few million total, nationwide, but the Waltons (and the millionaires in Congress) do the latter to the tune of tens (if not hundreds) of billions.

Dancin_In_Anson:doyner: Apparently when the page loaded on your computer the link sent you to an American Potatoe diatribe instead.

There's more truth to that than you intended.

On one hand Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are great people because they give a lot of money to charity. Oh and the Waltons do too...more than Buffet and almost as much as Gates (Wal Mart's charitable donations not included) but they get tax breaks. No mention of the possibility that Gates and Buffet might....juuuuuuuuuuust might realize some tax breaks as well.

Weapons grade potato(e).

For the record, Buffet and Gates are just as much a part of the problem as the Waltons. They're just less douchey about it these days.

what_now:FlashHarry: well, that's their right, of course. just as it's my right not to shop at their shiatty stores.

Exactly. You can biatch about this on facebook...or you can just not shop at WalMart.

My brother works for Wal Mart. Everything you've heard about their shady practices are true.

They don't just low-ball their employees: they routinely delay payments to their service contractors outto the ragged edge of their payment windows, and that's after they 'negotiate' sweetheart deals that tradeheavily on the 'prestige' of allowing their contractors to say "Hey, we have WAL*MART as a client!" inreturn for the lowest of rates.

As Robert Heinlien once wisely said: "While originally a French word, the French aristocrats at some point lost the concept of Noblesse Oblige while it remained strong among the English nobility. This helps explain while the British nobility are still around while the French are not." (quoting form memory because I'm too lazy to google)

That article was farking terrible. The point seems to be that the exceptionally wealthy have managed to "cheat" the system by crafting increasingly complicated shell games to hide their money and we should address this problem to make sure they're paying a reasonable share back into the system that they use to build and maintain that wealth. And it's right, of course.

But the Waltons are only a symptom of that problem and it's completely unjustifiable to go about attacking them directly in the way the writer did. They're an EXAMPLE of what's wrong with the system, they're not, in this instance, the actual problem.

Although, considering the source I guess it's about on par with my expectations.

skozlaw:But the Waltons are only a symptom of that problem and it's completely unjustifiable to go about attacking them directly in the way the writer did. They're an EXAMPLE of what's wrong with the system, they're not, in this instance, the actual problem.

As people mentioned up thread they are lobbying to change tax law in their favor while paying their employees so little the rest of us subsidize their profits with social services to bring their employees up to a living wage. fark the waltons

So, this author of TFA is upset these people, who several of them worked side-by-side with their father to earn their money, is pissed they are trying to evade death taxes of their estates so that their children and not the government ends up with their money. Just wanted to check.

Not to defend the Waltons either, isn't their current worth almost entirely made up of the stock of Walmart?

parasol:something about rich men...and heaven....and camels and the eyes of needles....

wonder what the stats are of walmart shoppers claiming to be chrisitans

I'm sure many of them are Christian, but you know what a hell of a lot of them are as well? Poor.

So, I don't see the problem. It's very possible to be forced to shop for your goods at the cheapest place in town and frown inside at the obvious un-Christian like behavior of the owners.

Not all of them are stupid hypocrites that relish the joys of having to buy their cheap shiat at Walmart. Some of them probably hate it and wish that they had the disposable income to waste on more expensive stores, but that's just not possible.

The whole Wal Mart system, from it's disgustingly-greedy owners, to it's awful policies against a decent living wage, to the horrific abominations of nature who go there to shop, is proof without a doubt that there is no God.

Dancin_In_Anson:doyner: Apparently when the page loaded on your computer the link sent you to an American Potatoe diatribe instead.

There's more truth to that than you intended.

On one hand Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are great people because they give a lot of money to charity. Oh and the Waltons do too...more than Buffet and almost as much as Gates (Wal Mart's charitable donations not included) but they get tax breaks. No mention of the possibility that Gates and Buffet might....juuuuuuuuuuust might realize some tax breaks as well.

Weapons grade potato(e).

Well that's some fine intellectual dishonesty. Gates' and Buffett's heirs will receive a relative pittance. The current Waltons ARE the heirs. Ergo, had Mr. Walton done what Mr Gates and Buffett are doing, the current Waltons would not exist in their current format. How could you miss that simple fact?

clancifer [TotalFark] 2013-09-12 01:52:53 PMWhy should we penalize such successful people? If you want the government to have its money, have it stop helping the indigent and poor and simply leave rich people to their earnings. I R troll retard

Just once I would like one of these billionaires to donate some money to my charity, the Shtetl G Foundation for the Advancement of the Procurement of Hookers and Blow. But no, those greedy farks want to keep their misbegotten cash.